Miskatonic Jack 2's definitions

Newburyport

An ancient, clustered, European style harbor town in northern Essex County Massachusetts at the mouth of the Merrimack River (on the south bank.)

Known for clipper ship construction two centuries ago, it has a very long history of prosperity and decline and figured prominently in the HPL story "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" among other literary works.

In the last half century it has gone from slum to a wealthy place dominated by yuppies, and has some of the best preserved early 19th century urban architecture anywhere in North America.

But as someone already said, it has it's secrets... has had them for centuries.

More towns should be designed like Newburyport.

Newburyport has a long and rich history. Located on the south bank of the Merrimack River before it empties into the Atlantic Ocean, the area was originally inhabited by the Pawtucket Indians. It was settled in the 1630’s by European immigrants who founded the city of Newbury. The small port of Newbury was quickly settled and became a fishing and trading center with the rest of Newbury turning to agricultural pursuits.

By 1764, the port was so prosperous and densely settled that it broke off from Newbury to become Newburyport. Maritime trade fueled the city’s economy, sparking extraordinary building activity in the decades following.

In 1811, a catastrophic fire leveled the downtown. That event, coupled with restrictive federal trading policies and embargoes implemented in response to the War of 1812 and the national financial panic of 1816, resulted in the city’s economic downfall...

-From the C. of C. website

by Miskatonic Jack 2 March 29, 2011

Edge City

1)A book written in 1991 by Joel Garreau

2)A "Suburb" with a large commercial district that takes on the identity of the metropolitan center, along with all others within a particular MSA/CMSA

3)A place which is dependent on the automobile, usually growing up around a mall, freeway exit, and several office parks

4)A place which often was nothing but forest and or farmland prior to 1965, or at most a small town

5)A place where there are often surface parking lots as far as the eye can see

6)The setting of the 1994 Jim Carey box office feature presentation "The Mask." A city plagued by crime and pollution

7)A nationally-syndicated comic strip created by Terry and Patty LeBan about a Jewish American family "juggling relationships, careers and traditions at the fast pace of modern life"

The edge city as Garreau describes it is fundamentally impossible without the automobile. It was not until automobile ownership surged in the 1950s, after four decades of fast steady growth, that the edge city became truly possible. Whereas virtually every American central business district (CBD) or secondary downtown that developed around non-motorized transportation or the streetcar has a pedestrian-friendly grid pattern of relatively narrow streets, most edge cities instead have a hierarchical street arrangement centered around pedestrian-hostile arterial roads.

-Fom a certain popular online encyclopedia which anyone can edit

by Miskatonic Jack 2 January 14, 2011

Little Kurdistan

1)An area on the south side of Nashville Tennessee around Nolensville road, which very likely contains the largest Iraqi Kurdish population outside the Middle-East. Also home to many other immigrants from a wide variety of mother tongues, especially those who are spanish speaking.

2)Any other enclave where the largest ethnic group without it's own state has a strong presence

The Area around Little Kurdistan is a magnet for North African, Bantu, East Indian, Southeast Asian, Eastern European and Hispanic immigrants.

by Miskatonic Jack 2 January 13, 2011

Homeowners Association

An omnipresent force in suburbia, or at least in most of it's residential neighborhoods.

A quasi-fascist governing board, often set up by a subdivision's real-estate developer, who strictly enforce such rules and building codes as...

-Grass must be kept watered, golf course green and closely manicured, even during times of drought and water shortages

-No one uses their yard to grow their own food

-No patch of land may be permitted to return to it's natural state

-No rooms or other additions may be permitted above or in front of the existing home

-No potter's shed or tool shed may be allowed anywhere on the property

-No yard ornaments

-No rain barrels

and so on.

The homeowners association says you can't put an addition onto the front of the house. They also said you couldn't add a 2nd level (which would keep any additional property from being paved over.) They said that the only place you could add on was the back (which paradoxically is the only yard anyone ever actually uses.)

To get another idea of what a homeowner's association is like, watch the 1999 episode of the X-Files by the name of "Arcadia."

by Miskatonic Jack 2 January 11, 2011

strata

A layer or layers of something distinctive from what lies above and below, typically used to describe layers of sedimentary rock or some other sediment, but can also be used in any number of situations, literally or allegorically.

The athropocene epic will be seen, millions of years from now, as that layer of strata mostly made up of dissolved petrochemical waste, alloy rust, concrete powder and other relic substances of human technological dommination of the Earth.

by Miskatonic Jack 2 January 9, 2011

ethnoburb

A particular area within an MSA but outside the central city where a particular ethnic group (nearly always an immigrant group) has decided to settle.

An ethnoburb is a suburban residential and business area in North America with a notable cluster of a particular ethnic minority population. The term was first coined in 1997 by Dr. Wei Li, then assistant professor of Geography and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut, in a paper examining the suburban Chinese population in Los Angeles (County,) California.1 Ethnoburbs emerge for a variety on reasons, in combination or as separate entities. These include significant changes in world politics and economy, policy changes in the United States' national policies, and demographic shifts in individual or in local connecting neighborhoods. These communities have substantial external connections to the globalised mainstream economy, leading to higher socioeconomic levels in its residents. An ethnoburb functions as a social hub and a place where immigrants may work and do business within their own networks. The formation of ethnoburbs also have an effect on the cultural and political characteristics of a city. In (MSA)s such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Vancouver, and Toronto, and in the San Gabriel Valley in California, for example, Chinese immigrants have built large houses and malls catering to Chinese businesses, changing the landscape of these and a significant number of smaller communities throughout the USA

-Wikipedia

by Miskatonic Jack 2 January 7, 2011

neighborhood

An area walkable by any able bodied person which is tied together by some common thread. It could be architectural, historical, cultural, functional... a hill, lake, pond, ditch, creek, school, shopping district, tower or other landmark the neighborhood is centered around, or a neighborhood association.

__________'s neighborhood was built between 1925 and 1935 and is centered on Chimera Hill, which it is named after. It has large and growing New Guinea Papuan-American population.

The office is on the fourth floor of the _________ building in the Tannery District, a neighborhood bordered by the Downtown (the office tower district) to the north, the Glassmaking District to the northwest, the Recording District to the northeast, Chinatown to the east, Ukranian Village to the west, Little Haiti to the southwest and Little Saigon to the southeast

by miskatonic Jack 2 November 27, 2010